Shares of some Sichuan-based companies plunged yesterday after they informed the Shanghai Stock Exchange of the earthquake's impact on their operations.

Sichuan Changhong Electric Co, China's second-biggest television maker, said it has resumed partial operations since Friday after a delay in transport of materials affected production in the short term.

"The earthquake caused certain losses to the company but won't greatly damage its production, and the company is still collecting data on the damage which will be disclosed later," it said in a statement to the exchange.

Its production lines of color TV sets returned to normal on Monday and air conditioner lines were partly resumed on Sunday. Its shares tumbled 7.26 percent to 6.26 yuan (89 US cents) each yesterday while the Shanghai Composite Index dropped 4.48 percent to 3,443.16 points.

The company stopped production on May 14, two days after Sichuan was hit by the 8.0 magnitude earthquake that killed at least 40,075 people. Changhong has said that it is "confident" of reaching its 2008 targets.

Several other firms with operations in Sichuan have also reported damage, including Sichuan Hongda Co Ltd. Its shares tumbled by the daily limit of 10 percent to 32.68 yuan yesterday after saying it lost 387.7 million yuan and that 79 employees died in the earthquake.

It is trying to fix equipment and will resume production as soon as possible, the zinc smelter said in a statement.

China Gezhouba Group Co said that three of its employees died in the earthquake, five were buried in a landslide and three more were severely injured.

It estimated the disaster may cost the company 60 million yuan, less than 20 percent of the value of its projects in the quake-hit area.

"The damage won't greatly affect the company's revenue," said the company, whose shares lost 7.66 percent to 10.01 yuan.

Companies suffered 67 billion yuan in damage in the earthquake, the government said on Monday. Independent estimates have put total losses at up to US$20 billion after lost future output is taken into account.

(Shanghai Daily May 21, 2008)